MCS board approves $1.1M for enhanced data program

Memphis City Schools may be dissolved in less than two months, but its students will have some of the most sophisticated electronics data reporting in the field.

The board approved a $1.1 million in additional expenses Monday for electronic reporting that shows results immediately after key tests are in, giving teachers a running account of an individual student's progress, attendance and behavior issues, along with what remedial or enrichment programs were offered and how well the student is tracking toward graduation.

The expenditure extends the reporting to high school students, which is expected to be online this spring.

Rev. Kenneth Whalum cast the lone vote against. After the meeting, he said "there was something during the justification that made an antenna go up." He did not say elaborate.

The vendor is Boston-based Public Consulting Group, a leader in student information systems. By customizing its product to fit the needs of Memphis teachers, it can offer 18 bits of data on each student, including ACT scores and key test scores that show how well each is progressing.

PCG began working with Memphis on the project more than a year ago. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina and Miami-Dade Public Schools are also PCG clients, but they are not as far along as MCS, said Robbie Ammons of PCG.

"No one else in the country is doing the work you are in Memphis," Ammons said.

The first sign he had of the program's acceptance here was from teachers, who, Ammons said, gave him his first standing ovation in 16 year-history with the firm.

"I have a lot of things I am proud of, but I am most proud of the work we are doing here in Memphis," he said.

"It has made a world of difference in my personal child's life," said board member Stephanie Gatewood. "When we had (Individualized Education Plan) meeting, teachers were able to pull down the data, look at trend. ... I know for a fact it is effective."

"This is a tool available on parent-teacher conference instead of the gradebook," said Deputy Supt. Irving Hamer.

"The teacher is pulling up your child's individual plan," he said, adding that the ongoing reporting will be effective in helping parents know what to expect as their children progress through school.

"We can advise parents on what is going to be happening and talk to them about what they should be doing to help out," Hamer said. "Your plan is now going to follow you. It does not go interoffice mail, does not depend on your penmanship ... (it will) follow you all the way from pre-K to 12th grade."

In Memphis, where one-third of students move within the district at least once in a school year, the data bank will keep records intact.

"For that reason, we think it is important for our students," said Supt. Kriner Cash.

Earlier in Monday's meeting, Cash spent an hour reviewing the successes of his term, often speaking in the past tense as if he were reviewing what had gone right with his administration before the vote to surrender, and warning board members and the community that merging two systems won't change underlying problems in the lives of city school children.

"Putting systems together doesn't change" the propensity for gang members to wait on the corner to recruit "our young males. You still gotta do something about that," he said, adding that much of what tarnishes the city schools are not "school issues."

"We can't provide affordable housing for everybody or a good lease or a good landlord for everybody. The perception that we are a failing school is easy dumping ground," Cash said, one of several references he made to the way MCS is described in the ongoing battle over whether residents of Memphis should vote to merge it with Shelby County Schools.